Entry: Bill Guyton

Greetings from Hamburg where we just completed the 14th World Cocoa Foundation Partnership Meeting. Over 150 people attended for the two day conference which covered a variety of topics from our new challenge grant program, commodity life cycles, and regional research collaboration. Our keynote speaker, Mr. Wolfgang Schmitt of GTZ, explained how the German government is working through public-private partnerships to support sustainable agricultural development in the developing world. We heard later from Ambassador Flemming Pederson/Danish Foreign Ministry, Ms. Petra Hippmann/BMZ, Carsten Schmitz-Hoffmann/GTZ and Richard Rogers/Gates Foundation, of how governments and private foundations are working in partnership to improve the lives of communities in the developing world.

One of the highlights of the meeting was the announcement of World Cocoa Foundation "Challenge Grants" which will foster innovations at the farm level in West Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia. A description of the eight awards is highlighted here.

World Cocoa Foundation also discussed our "Sustainability in Action" outline, to better describe how we better articulate the priorities and learnings from economic, social and environmental aspects of the programs we support.

We appreciate all who were able to join us in the beautiful city of Hamburg, and to the distinguished speakers who participated and shared their knowledge with us.